


Do You Want a Man?

by loonietuna



Series: Do You Want a Man? [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Slow Burn, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 05:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3716908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonietuna/pseuds/loonietuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is a supermodel; Bucky is Steve's unsuspecting neighbor.</p><p>Part 1 of Do You Want a Man: Model AU.</p><p>Series updated with Snippets as inspired, possibly some excerpts that might not make it into the main story. Not a full story, just snippets/excerpts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> So the comments and kudos are surprisingly overwhelming for a delicate flower such as myself :>
> 
> Since I'm shallow like that, I've written more in this little universe. I have it split to "Before" and "after" Bucky discovers who his neighbor is. The drabbles in each part may not necessarily be chronological, but I will try my best. Thanks again for all the support! Feel free to come find me on [Tumblr](http://captainbeardburn.tumblr.com/)! :)
> 
> Completely un-beta'd, all mistakes are my own. 
> 
> The Scene: Bucky runs into his new neighbor. Cliche'd meetings happen.

Bucky was literally one step out his front door when fate decided how his Monday was going to start: by colliding into a guy built like a fucking tank and spilling his unlidded travel mug all over the poor unsuspecting soul. “Jesus fucking Christ!” Bucky swore, looking at the spilled mess between them.

The guy gasped and immediately stepped back, pulling his now drenched white t-shirt away from scalded skin.

“I am so fucking sorry, _God_ , this is what I get. Are you ok, man?” Bucky asked frantically.

“Yeah, yeah…I-I’m fine.” The guy hissed, holding his shirt away from his skin and clearly burned. 

Bucky slipped back into his apartment and grabbed the closest dry cloth he could find, taking it to the guy’s shirt absent-mindedly and muttering  “I’m such a fucking dunce; see, they warn you about texting a _driving_ but the real dangers lie in texting and walking, fucking Natasha…I’m going to fuckin’ kill-“

 “I’m Steve by the way.” The guy interrupts. Seriously, dude just gets scalded with inferno coffee and he’s offering introductions?

“Bucky.” Bucky answers before looking up to Steve and taking his eyes off the guy’s stained t-shirt. Grey eyes meet the brightest blue and Bucky stops breathing, the guy is _that_ fucking gorgeous. Blonde hair matted to his skin with sweat, and big, blue eyes glassy with shock but shining with a blush and amused smirk. If it wasn’t for the big brown stain on his shirt, you wouldn’t even think he just got fresh, hot coffee dumped all over his front.

Suddenly Bucky is very, very aware of how close he is standing to the guy. Taking a step back and clearing his throat, Bucky sheepishly holds out the towel for Steve to take.  

“Hey man, I am really, really sorry. I wasn’t paying attention, I hope you didn’t get burned too badly.” Bucky apologized with a nervous brow and a pained expression. Hot or not, he really did feel bad.

“Nah. It’s ok, I was just getting back from a run, needed a shower anyway.” Steve shrugged, taking the offered towel and dabbing it gently across his apparently chiseled stomach-- _oh my_ fucking _God keep it together, Barnes._

“Cool, um…I hate to scald and run, but I’m kind of on my way to work.” Bucky winced, taking a couple steps back towards the stairs.

“No problem, just do the rest of us a favor? Pay attention to where you’re walking when holding hot beverages.” Uh-oh, was Steve flirting?

“Fuck, yeah…I’m sorry-”

Steve waved it off, and turned away and walked towards his apartment just one door down from Bucky’s own before turning back and adding “Though for future reference, if you want to get me coffee, all you have to do is ask.”

Uh-oh, uh-oh, _UH-OH_.  Flirting, that was definitely flirting.

Bucky gave a nervous laugh, switching hands with his mug and shaking the scalded one dry, suddenly painfully aware of it.  “Nah, too unoriginal.  Gotta make an impression.” Bucky joked, aiming for casual.

“Well you can definitely say you did that.” Steve laughed, unlocking his door and blushing brilliantly. “Be careful, Buck. Nice to meet you.” Steve smiled coyly, before walking inside.

Bucky found himself standing there, mouth agape. Did that happen? Did that _seriously_ just happen? Feeling his phone vibrate in his pocket was a sucker punch back to reality. Bucky sprinted down the stairs still trying to decide if he was going to kill Natasha or kiss her for this one.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We see Bucky at work, Clint likes to make Bucky's life difficult, and Natasha introduces us to Bucky's "boyfriend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, I have no idea where this story is going. I'm breaking out of a super-fucking-long writer's block and this is kind of an exercise for me. This story just kind of...happened, now it is taking over and writing itself. Your guess is as good as mine. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> I wanted to see how Bucky, Natasha, and Clint would behave at work; apparently Clint likes to be an asshole (and I _love_ it) :')

Bucky sprinted out the subway, already ten minutes late to work because of the Steve fiasco, barreling into the lobby of Stark Tower like a lunatic.  He almost made it as far as the elevators when he heard a familiar voice.

“Badge, sir?”

Bucky sighed. “No time for your shit today, Barton.”

Clint moseyed up to Bucky, scowl prominent on his face and put a hand in front of him, blocking him from entering the building any further. “Sorry, sir. I can’t let you in without a badge.”

“Seriously, Clint? You _know_ I work here and I bet you _know_ I’m already late. Come on man, cut me some slack.” Bucky pleaded as he heard the elevator ding in arrival.

“How do I know you are an employee of Stark Industries if you don’t have your badge, Mister…?”

Bucky levelled Clint with a look. Clint didn’t budge, only raised his eyebrows.

“Barnes! What’re you still doing down here?” Came a commanding, shrill voice that caused both Bucky and Clint to visibly shrink. Pepper Potts stopped in front of Clint and Bucky, Natasha on her heels. “Barnes, get up to the lab. Tony will be there in twenty, so help you. Clint, get back to work and stop patronizing the staff.” Pepper rolled her eyes, passing the peons to take the private elevator to the residences. Bucky stuck his tongue out and Clint gave him the finger, both men giving a brave display of how real adults handle petty arguments.  Natasha smacked Clint upside the head as she passed before grabbing Bucky’s arm and pulling him to the staff elevator.

“I text you over an hour ago reminding you that Stark is going to be inspecting the labs today and you pick _today of all days_ to be late and show up with _coffee_ on your shirt?” Natasha seethed.

“Ow, ow, ow.  Fuck, it was an accident.” Bucky whined, twisting out of Natasha’s fierce grip. Clint pointed two fingers at his eyes, then aimed them at Bucky: _I’m watching you._ Bucky gave Clint a lovingly obscene two fingered gesture back, one that got him a hard punch in the arm from Natasha.

“What happened?” Natasha asked, nostrils flaring. 

“I ran into my neighbor. Literally. With hot coffee.” Natasha gave an undignified snort.

“What happened next? He threaten for you to pay for his dry cleaning?”

“No. He offered to get coffee.” Bucky answered with a satisfied smirk. Natasha whipped her head in Bucky’s direction.  She could act all tough, ice queen demeanor part of her charm, but deep inside she was a sucker for gossip and worse…romance.

“What?”

“Yep. Well…actually he said if I wanted to get him coffee I should’ve asked instead.” Bucky stared up at the rising numbers nonchalantly, Natasha looked forward, and eyes wide before resetting her trademark stone slab stare.

“So when is it?” She asked.

“What?”

“The coffee date.” Natasha said coolly, stepping out of the elevator first and walking alongside Bucky to his station, the one in the far back corner with the view.

“There isn’t one.” Bucky answered truthfully, fumbling with his bag as he saw Natasha shift her weight to one leg, hands on her hips. “He uh…well…ok... _maybe_ I read too much into it. Actually, I musta read into it too much. You shoulda seen this guy…”

“Wait, so this guy gives you an opening and you don’t take it? Since when?” Natasha scoffed and shook her head in disbelief. “What does he look like?”

“Fucking gorgeous.” Bucky sighed, rolling up his sleeves before pulling out last night’s blueprints, his eyes already crossing at the notion of having to stare at them any longer.

“More gorgeous than that?” Natasha asked, nodding out the window.  Bucky didn’t even have to look, he had the image ingrained in his fucking skull.

“No one is on par with Cap.” Bucky laughed, waggling his eyebrows.  Bucky’s missed the whole Marvel Model takeover while he was overseas, but he has to admit, he’s not complaining.  The Billboard outside is the only Marvel ad Bucky is familiar with, Captain America in his patriotic briefs, and better yet it is directly in Bucky’s line of sight forty hours a week.  An over the top, giant advert for Marvel Menswear, the guy in the ad is fucking obscene. Hair tousled like he’d just been fucked, bedroom eyes and a hint of a playful smirk that followed you wherever you walked along the floor to ceiling windows.  Bucky only wished he could see the rest of that pretty face of his; he had the lower half covered with his t-shirt, that he had playfully pulled up to reveal some chiseled fucking abs and an Adonis furrow Buck wanted to trace with his tongue.  Bucky playfully put his hand up to the glass and clutched his heart with his other hand with an overdramatic lustful sigh. 

“It’s because it’s black and white. Everyone looks better in black and white.” Natasha mused, laughing at Bucky as he finally took a seat at his work station.

“I think I’d have a fucking stroke if I saw that guy in color.” Bucky moaned just picturing it, so loud and lewd, and just in time for Dr. Banner to arrive.

“Don’t let Stark hear you make that noise, you’ll be regretting it until you’re dead. And probably even after then.” Bruce deadpanned.

“Don’t matter, conversation over.” Bucky insisted, eyes meeting Natasha’s who just shrugged.

“For _now_. Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll meet this coffee beau. In the meantime go get a fucking haircut. You won't be wooing Cap with that mop, isn't that right, Cap?” Natasha teased, blowing a kiss out the window to Captain America and giving a lazy salute before turning on her heel and heading back to the elevators to finally get some work of her own done for Pepper.

“Enough about your fantasy husband; more bionic arm and how to not kill the person attached.” Bruce sighed, pouring over the schematics.  

Bucky grinned.  “I thought you’d never ask.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billboard inspired by the last picture in [ this ](http://captainbeardburn.tumblr.com/post/115993289904/candied-tentacles-dirtysouthavenger) photoset. Linking the whole thing for...reasons.......................................................................................................mind the drool.
> 
> I'd love to talk to you on [ tumblr ](http://captainbeardburn.tumblr.com)!


	3. Casual Encounter #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky does some laundry and pays his debt off to Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooookaaaaay...I'm not quite sure how this ended up, but I thought it was ridiculously fun to write. Plus we finally get to see a bit of Steve's stubbornness side come out to play. This is all completely unbeta'd if that isn't obvious, so any horrible grammatical errors are my own.
> 
> In my mind, this is Bucky and Steve's first extended encounter after the coffee incident, instead of the casual "Hey, how's it going"s when they see each other in the hallway.
> 
> Thank you all for the support, I'm having way too much fun in this little universe :)

Bucky was just making his way down the last flight of stairs when he heard a deep, angry voice bellow from the laundry room: “God-Fu…Dammit!”

 

Brows furrowing, Bucky took the last couple steps cautiously as he rounded the corner into the modest laundry room in his building.  Almost as old as the building itself must be, the four washers and four dryers were hardly ever all available for use, being one step broken down from another.  Bucky stood in the doorway, basket in grip, as he watched his neighbor Steve, in another one of those too tight shirts, try—and fail—to insert the change needed to start the machine.

  
“Come on you motherloving…I swear to Christ Almighty you will—oh for the love of-“

 

“Maybe if you try sweet talkin’ her, she’ll open up for you.” Bucky chuckled, reveling in watching Steve get a quick jolt up his spine before turning around sheepishly.

 

“Heya, Buck…How long you-“

 

“Long enough.”

 

“Right.” Steve huffed out, nodding and ducking his head as if he could fold himself into a man half his size.  Bucky dropped his basket onto Steve’s neighboring machine, leaning on it and giving Steve an amused smirk as the blond tried to wrangle the machine’s coin slot again, this time with his tongue out and a little more modesty.  Bucky tried not to find it cute.

 

“Do you want--?”

 

“No. I got it.” Steve insisted, then sighing and giving Bucky an apologetic look. Bucky only held his hands up;  _I get it._ It’s a pride thing at this point.  Bucky couldn’t judge a man who wanted to prove his dominance over machine.

 

Opening his own machine up and dropping his colors in, Bucky pulled out his quarters and slotted them into the machine, water pouring into the basin immediately.  He couldn’t help but feel the annoyance radiating off of Steve beside him, he smiled a little to himself hearing Steve muttering under his breath, too quiet to hear over the sound of his own washer filling up.

 

Adjusting his machine to the correct settings and waiting until he was satisfied with the height of the water, Bucky poured in his detergent and dropped the lid of the machine with a loud _bang._ He pulled out a book from the bottom of his basket (he always brought some reading on laundry day, since the great Panty Snatcher incident a couple years back). Bucky sat at the small table in the far corner by the door; effectively ignoring Steve’s wandering eyes on him.

 

His annoyance was palpable, but even better was the fact that Bucky could practically hear Steve’s resolve breaking with each failed push of the slot.  He tried to not be too amused by that.

 

Waiting patiently, Bucky flipped open the cover of his book, making a show of licking his index finger before turning to his last read page.  He was barely one sentence in when he heard a dramatic sigh from Steve.

 

“Fine.  I give!” Steve said, turning to the brunet with his hands on his hips. Bucky tried to keep his eyes effectively above the man’s waistline, but his hip hugging shorts made that a little harder than Bucky would like to admit.

  
“I’m sorry?” Bucky asked, feigning ignorance and watching as steam practically blew out of Steve’s ears.

 

“I…give. This is me, waving my white flag.” Steve surrendered, pulling one of his (tight) white shirts out of the wash and waving it for added effect.  Bucky stared.

 

“And?”

 

Steve frowned. “ _And?_ And what?”  Bucky closed his book and leaned back, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows, making no effort to hide the smug look on his face.  Steve rolled his eyes and dropped his shoulders.  “And _…Bucky,_ I was hoping you would be so kind as to show your ignorant neighbor how to correctly woo the washing machine.” Steve added, laying it on real thick and really buttering up Bucky’s ego. It worked.

 

Bucky pretended to contemplate it for a moment, much to the annoyance of Steve, before standing up quickly. “Well, it is my neighborly duty.”

 

“Right. And it’s the least you can do,” Steve laughed, “Since the real victim of your coffee incident is in this load.” 

 

Bucky winced. “I really am sorry—“ Steve held out a hand again to stop him.

 

“Just help me get this load started, and we’ll call it even.”

 

Bucky tried not to let his mind fall too far into the gutter with those words.  Steve stood by the slots, hand still on the lever to push in the coins and waiting patiently for Bucky’s instructions, making it clear he wanted to do this _himself_ and did _not_ want Bucky to do it for him.

 

Bucky cleared his throat before putting on his confident, cocky persona, and getting right up into Steve’s space. “See, all these machines are real finicky, probably ‘cuz they’re older than you or me.  So what you have to do, with this one in particular, is when you’re pushing it in, push down and slightly to the left,” Bucky knew exactly how that sounded, and he tried not to stutter as Steve watched Bucky speak, getting too caught up in the fact that he’s _staring at his fucking mouth_. “Do it like that, and that’s where you get the sweet spot and she’ll take it nice and easy.” Bucky instructed watching Steve do exactly as he was told (taking direction so well),

 

“Just like that, huh?” Steve practically purred. 

 

“Just like that.” Bucky growled back, he couldn’t believe his fucking ears. _Is this really happening?_

 

Just as Bucky told him, the machine did exactly as he said, accepting all four quarters and water beginning to fill the basin. 

 

Steve beamed up at Bucky, but when bright blue eyes met his he could see the blond’s pupils had dilated just the slightest bit, making him look a little stunned and a little hungry.  “Thanks.” Steve said softly.

 

 _Fuck_.

 

“No problem.” Bucky swallowed, keeping a wide Cheshire grin on his face.  They both stood there a minute, the sound of falling water creating an ambiance that left both men a little dazed, eyes fixated on one another’s faces, travelling from eyes, to lips, back to eyes; both men silently tiptoeing a line in their minds, unsure of whether or not to cross.

 

At least that’s what Bucky _hoped_ Steve was thinking as the blond met his eye’s again with thick lashes. _God he is so fucking gorgeous._

 

Feeling a little overwhelmed and a little breathless _(it’s just fucking laundry, Barnes),_ Bucky dropped his eyes first, taking a step back and clearing his throat, nodding to the machine.  “Probably about time to drop your soap in.”

 

Steve still looked a little dazed, but turned his attention to the machine rapidly filling in front of him. “Uh, yeah. Hey, thanks.”

 

“So we’re even?” Bucky asked, taking another step back towards his table.

 

“Yep.” Steve nodded with a tight smirk, running a hand through his hair and looking a little flustered.

 

“Good. Glad I could be of some service.” Bucky joked back with a nod. He turned and took a seat at the table and opened his book.  He stared at the pages in vain, not doing any actual reading, instead listening to Steve as he put the soap in his machine and dropped the lid.  Peripherally, Bucky could see Steve pick up his basket and hesitate a moment, immediately Bucky’s stomach did a small flip that the rest of him did _not_ appreciate.

 

But Steve just turned around and walked out, offering another quick, passing ‘thank you’ to Bucky; leaving before Bucky could even call out a ‘anytime.’

 

Not quite sure what to do with himself and his disappointment, Bucky dropped his head on the table with a loud _thunk,_ hoping a nice bump to the head might knock some sense into him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand just because I love any excuse to see a picture of Mr Evans, [here is the casual laundry day look](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rNrmTbbbE-Q/SRMkkfHhkFI/AAAAAAAAAoQ/AOi6Inr8OvM/s1600/naomi+kaltman+shoot+007.jpg) I've got pictured for Stevie. 
> 
> Yeah, he and Bucky are both pretty young in this story (Early to mid twenties maybe?). 
> 
> Come hang out with me on [tumblr](https://captainbeardburn.tumblr.com/)?

**Author's Note:**

> [this](http://captainbeardburn.tumblr.com/post/116032222169/behind-the-scene-of-the-first-avenger) is how I picture Steve after his run, except more a lot more sweaty ;)
> 
> Someday I'll learn how to post gifs onto AO3, today is not this day.


End file.
